A/N: My apologies for being absent so long. I lost absolutely all desire to write for a long time and, to be quite honest, wasn't interested in this story for a few weeks. (Sorry, my girlfriend's just more interesting ;P )
I walked until the two suns set below the horizon, often looking over my shoulder out of fear of being spotted. The grass was tall enough to hide me if I lay down flat on the ground, so once I stopped for the night I felt just sheltered enough to not be afraid of being spotted. However, I couldn't sleep for many long hours. The burnt orange hue of the night sky combined with the horror I had seen hours earlier only made it more difficult for me to fall asleep. I briefly considered calling the Doctor, but even hearing his voice would be difficult after what I had seen.
Staring up at the sky and gazing at unfamiliar constellations, I suddenly felt more alone than I had ever felt before. The Doctor was beyond my reach at his young age, as well as incapable of rescuing me, and I had no friends on Gallifrey except K'anpo, whom I had left behind in favor of the Wastelands that were still miles away. But I reminded myself that although I may not be ready to speak to the Doctor just yet, I did have two other friends I could easily talk to. I realized then that it had been weeks since I'd last seen or spoken to Jack and once I realized that, I missed him more than ever. He had always been so understanding and helpful that I almost immediately pulled my phone out to call him.
It was comforting to hear his voice and despite the fact that I knew the Doctor most likely wouldn't want me to talk about what I had seen, I needed to for my own sanity and peace of mind. Jack seemed to understand why I was so shaken up by the boy's death while he also understood why Theta had apparently snapped when his friend was nearly drowned. He helped to soothe my fears and worries, as well as comfort me while I panicked over being stuck on a foreign planet with no friends or escape.
Jack and I set up a schedule where I would call him every night before I went to sleep and since my days only consisted of walking through endless field of grass under burning suns, Jack would tell me the adventures he and the Torchwood team had been up to. For a whole week we communicated like that until one day I noticed that my phone was malfunctioning. It seemed to glitch sometimes and every few minutes the call would become scratchy and muffled so that I could barely understand anything Jack was saying. He had Tosh try and scan my phone from the Hub, but the only thing they could figure out about my phone was that the time lock around Gallifrey was somehow effecting my phone. We decided I would only call once every few days so that my phone wouldn't glitch as often, which meant I was left alone with my thoughts and worries more often than not.
Nine days after I left Mount Cadon and the Cadonflood River behind, I reached the edge of Magni Tenebrosa. The lake was enormous and stretched beyond the horizon in nearly every direction. K'anpo's instructions had been to turn north once I reached the lake, but I decided one day of rest before continuing my trek wouldn't hurt. I refilled my water flask and rested by the water's edge for a few hours before finally deciding to go for a swim. I slipped my shoes and pants off and then waded into the water up to my waist, but I didn't dare to go any farther due to my fear of deep water. Instead I splashed water over my arms and torso to rinse off the dirt that had accumulated there over the last nine days. Then I rinsed my hair out before laying back in the water and floating on the surface while I gazed up at the sky.
Water sloshed around in my ears as I continued to float, but I didn't care or try to keep the water from flooding my eardrums. So much had happened so quickly that I had spent the last nine days trying to comprehend it all. I stopped having nightmares about the angels and how I fell to my death, and instead dreamt about the moment when Theta Sigma took the nameless boy's life with rage burning in his eyes. Those nightmares haunted me even in my waking hours when I walked through the endless fields of red grass.
After my bath in the lake, I shuffled back onto dry land and pulled my pants and shoes back on. Even though I was still soaking wet, I could live with wet clothes because I wasn't about to sit nearly half naked on an alien planet. I spent the rest of the day relaxing on the sandy bank of the lake, gazing either at the sky or the beauty of the lake and the grass rustling on its shores. By the time the two suns had set below the horizon, I had already grown tired despite my mostly uneventful day. I fell asleep surprisingly fast and for the first time, didn't dream of angels or young boys with fiery rage in their eyes.
The next day, I started my journey again and headed north along the edge of the lake. I followed the lake for another five days, walking along each twist and turn of the shoreline until I finally reached what could only be the northernmost tip of the lake. The lake no longer stretched on across the horizon and instead made a sharp turn to the left, then continued to west. As K'anpo had told me, I passed two mountain ranges along my journey up the coast of Magni Tenebrosa. The second range was still in sight and close enough for me to travel there within a day's walk. But I knew that the Citadel lay behind those mountains and if I went there, I would not be welcomed at all.
Instead of letting those worries trouble me, I pushed them out of my mind and followed K'anpo's instructions to turn west once more. Only a day's walk later, I could see that the grass had started to give way to huge sand dunes. I was suddenly stricken by fear at the sight. Time Lords weren't fond of outsiders and although those that lived in the Wastelands were not as hateful as those in the Citadel, I couldn't help but worry that I might not be taken into a tribe and instead left to live on my own. I was nearly out of food and I didn't know how to hunt or provide shelter or protection for myself.
Two days after I left the mountains behind, I was sitting on the shore of the lake and staring out at the water as the fiery colors of the sunset reflected off the water's surface. I reached into my back pocket and pulled out my phone and called Jack. It had been long enough since our last call and I was eager for some kind of company or human contact. I quickly told him everything that had happened since our last call, which wasn't much, and let him tell me about the trouble Owen had gotten into the other day at a bar and the new woman who had joined the Torchwood team, as well as the previous member who had died only a few days ago.
The suns had just set below the horizon when Jack and I said goodbye. I stuffed my phone into my satchel and prepared to take another bath in the lake when a deep voice suddenly sounded somewhere behind me. I gasped and looked over my shoulder to see a large and very scary looking man dressed in animal skins and tattered Time Lord clothing looming over me, the spear in his right hand pointed at my head.
"Who are you?" he snarled. "And why are you here?"
A/N: Please please please review!